Rinpa School, late 19th centuryA pair of kakejiku forming a complete diptych, in ink, colour and gold on silk: the right with one hundred cranes standing over rice fields; the left with one hundred turtles crossing a river, both signed with seal Kiyu, with a wood storage box. Each approx., 98cm x 37cm (42½in x 14½in). (3).

Footnotes

Exhibited and published: The right hand scroll with cranes is based on a design in Korin hyakuzu, a woodblock-printed collection of designs by Korin published in about 1816 by Kiitsu's master Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828), and was also used by Kiitsu himself in a pair of scrolls exhibited in New York in 2012 (see Matthew McKelway, Silver Wind, Japan Society, New York, 2012, cat. nos. 14 and 20). The present pair by Kiyu, with turtles substituted for the more canonical cranes, were exhibited in an exhibition held in Japan in 2011 to mark the 250th anniversary of Hoitsu's birth (Matsuo Tomoko and Okano Tomoko, Sakai Hoitsu to Edo Rinpa no zenbo, Exhibition Catalogue, Kyuryudo, Tokyo, 2011, p.282, pl.248).

Little is known about Kiyu's career beyond the fact that he was evidently a pupil of Suzuki Kiitsu (1796-1858), leader of the second generation of the Edo-Rinpa school, and that he worked for the Doi daimyo, lords of the Koga domain who were also patrons of the Rinpa-style lacquerer Hara Yoyusai (1772-1845) and owned at least one major work by Ogata Korin (1658-1716).

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